In recent years, image forming systems have been widely used, in which a post-finishing apparatus is combined to an image forming apparatus, whereby various post-finishing processes, such as a de-curling process, a sheet reversing process, a hole punching process, a sheet folding process, and a sheet binding process, are conducted on sheets carrying images printed by the image forming apparatus.
Generally in such systems, a single post-finishing apparatus is combined to a single image forming apparatus, however, there are many image forming systems in which a single post-finishing apparatus is combined to a plurality of image forming apparatuses, or a plurality of post-finishing apparatuses are combined to a single image forming apparatus.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-276,683 discloses an image forming system in which a single post-finishing apparatus is combined to a plurality of image forming apparatuses, while Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-347,634 discloses an image forming system in which a plurality of post-finishing apparatuses are combined to a single image forming apparatus.
Further, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-124,180 discloses an image forming system in which a plurality of post-finishing apparatus are combined to a plurality of image forming apparatuses.
Due to advancement toward full color image formation from monochromatic image formation, speeding up of image formation, changing toward multifunction, and separation of functions, each generated in the field of the image forming apparatuses, as well as, due to speeding up of post-finishing, diversification of the function and separation of the function, each generated in the field of the post-finishing apparatuses, many parties have tried to meet users' diversifying needs, by increasing the number of the combinations between the image forming apparatuses and the post-finishing apparatuses, or by flexibly changing these combinations.
However, in actual working fields, conventional systems barely meet the increased types of operational jobs, nor improvement of printing productivity, which are problematic matters.